


Pretense

by pandajin



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, Johnny's Jr.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 11:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5826109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandajin/pseuds/pandajin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi!! I thought I've given up on posting this but then I reread it and decided I should get it up.</p><p>So I wrote and finished this out of 'anger' on exactly September 12th 2015 and I'm sorry I just posted it now.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Pretense

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! I thought I've given up on posting this but then I reread it and decided I should get it up.
> 
> So I wrote and finished this out of 'anger' on exactly September 12th 2015 and I'm sorry I just posted it now.

I sat on Genki’s bed while I watched him go over his drawers, trying to find his bottle of concealer, whining when he couldn’t find it as he closed yet another drawer.

 

 

 

“Can’t you just skip it??” I asked almost too impatiently and he turned to me, raising an eyebrow.

 

 

 

“We might get filmed later during rehearsals so I have to look good!” he pouted and then went back to his search.

 

 

 

We have Gamushara performance battle rehearsals schedule later today. But for this morning, I have decided to ask Genki out on a short date to a restaurant for brunch since we hadn’t gone out for how many decades already because of our packed schedules (Sure, I am always with Genki during work but it was just work and we have to be focused on what we were doing so I didn’t really get to talk to Genki much), but when I got to Genki’s house earlier today, I found him in his room still sleeping, saying that he’s too tired to even get up so I forced him to get up and he did get up, but with a smug face, and now that he’s all showered and dressed, he’s looking for a goddamn concealer bottle.

 

 

 

I sighed. And Genki heard me sigh so he turned to me again and squinted. “Are you complaining?”

 

 

 

“EH?” I waved my hands. “No, no…I was just thinking maybe we could move eating brunch to just eating real lunch. We’ll get drained again later.”

 

 

 

Genki closed a drawer and then sat beside me. “Sure.” He smiled. I stared back and smiled as well, but my smile might have faded almost immediately when I saw a dark mark on Genki’s arm.

 

 

 

“What’s this?” I frowned, tracing a finger on the mark.

 

 

 

Genki jerked away his arm. “Ow.” He bit his lip. “I got it from practicing doing the windmill.” He managed a weak chuckle. “It was really difficult, I keep on just rolling on the floor randomly. It’s really ugly to look at so I thought I’d cover it with some concealer.” He chuckled again.

 

 

 

I did not laugh. I got up and then knelt down in front of Genki to roll up his jogging pants.

 

 

 

“Jin, don’t.” he protested, but I’ve already rolled up one side. He then stared at me.

 

 

 

“Genki...this…”I said, looking up to him with worry.

 

 

 

“It’s okay.”  He patted my cheek and then proceeded on to roll down the side of his jogging pants to cover his badly bruised knee and shin.

 

 

 

I stood up. “It’s not okay, Genki! You are seriously hurt!”

 

 

 

He looked up at me and tried a soft smile. “But I want to win this time, Jin. I have to. If I don’t go to rehearsals just to take a rest, I won’t be able to learn things and it would be unfair, because everyone is also trying their best at what they are doing. And I can’t let my team down anymore.” He stared on the floor. “Last year was my fault.”

 

 

 

Genki had always been like this. He blames himself for every wrong thing that happened. Yes, nowadays he’s being portrayed in the media as a very spoiled egocentric brat who takes for himself all the chairs in dancing isutori, but the truth is that he is still that shy and bullied child from how many years ago. He still can’t start a conversation with many people all at once and his stomach still aches before performances, but these are sadly taken away from his image in the television these days mainly because the agency thinks that it is sorely repetitive and Genki’s image needs a change. Therefore, they chose to transform him to this ‘lazy’ brat who only cares about his fringe and his lips and only gets to stay in the jimusho because he is cute.

 

 

 

“It’s not your fault. Okay? Stop saying that. You were new to it.” I placed a hand on his shoulder, hoping to ease him. He was really new to break dancing. Sure, we were all new to what we did but Genki was a baseball pitcher who got his elbow injured. I will never understand why the agency had put him in the team that does break dancing and why he became the leader of it. They could’ve switched him and I so that he would not have to do tricks not fit for his body. Genki’s elbow is not totally fine yet, of course, because if it is then he would not have stayed long in the agency, but he was put in team Mu so he had to do backflips. What if he gets injured again? Every single time I watch him doing a backflip, I see one of his arms slide a bit. What if he fails getting down and lands badly? But he still did the goddamn backflips, because as he says, it is for the fans’ sake.

 

 

 

“But still, I have to practice more so the fans would see it.” He replied. “I want to win them too.”

 

 

 

Genki has bashers in the internet. I don’t know what is wrong with them but maybe it’s just misinformation and TV not showing the whole truth, but I still get mad whenever I see hate comments about how Genki “doesn’t dance well”, how he “forces himself to be soft-spoken”, and how he cares about his looks more than his team. The one thing I hate the most is that when some say that Genki pulls me down. No, he doesn’t. He is actually one of the biggest reasons why I am still in the agency. We would not be shinme if I hadn’t agreed to it, because there are a bunch of other juniors that could be paired with me. But why would they choose to pair me with Genki? Because we suit each other well. One can’t go without the other. I can’t go without him. Not complete, even.

 

 

 

“We can’t win everybody over, Genki.” It’s the truth. Because of course there will always be people who would not be interested in the kind of entertainment that we offer, and we respect that. But at the same time I knew very well too that Genki wasn’t talking about that.

 

 

 

The fans. He was talking about the fans. He had always been trying to view things from the fans’ perspective. He would often input ideas to the groups’ brainstorming whenever he can, his ideas coming from how the fans would like to view us. Most often his ideas would get shot down immediately, saying they are quite too much. But he just cares about the fans. He shouldn’t feel bad. Yet he does. And I’m the only one he shows it to. He would get upset and take it out on throwing hard baseball pitches of which I had to catch at the back of the agency’s building. But after that, we’d walk back in the dance studio like nothing happened. And he would share ideas again. And it repeats.

 

 

 

It could be paradoxical to state that ‘it is only just to say that it is unfair’, the way how Genki doesn’t get the right amount of appreciation that he deserves. But we can’t exactly blame it on the viewers, because they only see us within the confines of the TV screens in the comforts of their homes.

 

 

 

“You know what I mean, Jin.” He said, almost like whisper. He held onto my hand on his shoulder.

 

 

 

“I do.” I answer, and he stood up to open his closet and pull out a backpack. He unzipped the front pocket and smiled to himself. “Ah, there you are.”

 

 

 

He held out both of his arms to me; one hand holding the concealer bottle, the other bruised. “Help me?”

 

 

 

I can only nod grimly.

 

 

 

No oppositions. No protests.

 

 

 

“So tell me about that restaurant we’ll be going to later.” Genki chirped, his tone upbeat.

 

 

 

Just the sickening pretense that we are both fond of the life that we chose to have.

 

 


End file.
